the medal, then he makes, as it were, a sort of secret understanding
with the select circle of the more intelligent of his readers or
spectators; he shows them that he had previously seen and admitted the
validity of their tacit objections; that he himself is not tied down
to the represented subject, but soars freely above it; and that, if he
chose, he could unrelentingly annihilate the beautiful and
irresistibly attractive scenes which his magic pen has produced. No
doubt, wherever the proper tragic enters, everything like irony
immediately ceases; but from the avowed raillery of Comedy, to the
point where the subjection of mortal beings to an inevitable destiny
demands the highest degree of seriousness, there are a multitude of
human relations which unquestionably may be considered in an ironical
view, without confounding the eternal line of separation between good
and evil. This purpose is answered by the comic characters and scenes
which are interwoven with the serious parts in most of those pieces of
Shakespeare where romantic fables or historical events are made the
subject of a noble and elevating exhibition. Frequently an intentional
parody of the serious part is not to be mistaken in them; at other
times the connection is more arbitrary and loose, and the more so, the
more marvelous the invention of the whole and the more entirely it has
become a light reveling of the fancy. The comic intervals everywhere
serve to prevent the pastime from being converted into a business, to
preserve the mind in the possession of its serenity, and to keep off
that gloomy and inert seriousness which so easily steals upon the
sentimental, but not tragical, drama. Most assuredly Shakespeare did
not intend thereby, in defiance to his own better judgment, to humor
the taste of the multitude: for in various pieces, and throughout
considerable portions of others, and especially when the catastrophe
is approaching, and the mind consequently is more on the stretch and
no longer likely to give heed to any amusement which would distract